OK, granted this isn't technically NASCAR, but did anyone watch the Indy 500 the other day? I woke up and found my wife thoroughly entrenched in it, despite the fact that she'd never shown the slightest interest in any racing sports ever. Turns out, I'd totally forgotten about the Danika Patrick female driver hype, which apparently boosted the race's ratings up 40% over last year's race. Not bad...

Well, I got suckered into the thing as well, since she was in 12th place at the time. Then I became glued to the TV as she continued to move all the way up and into the lead with just a few laps left in the race. She didn't quite win the thing, finishing in 4th, but damn that was a pretty impressive display of driving by her. Even managed to somehow escape serious damage to her car in a pretty major looking collision that she had (and caused) at one point.

Fun stuff. I suppose the fact that she's relatively "cute" certainly adds to her appeal too. So did anyone else watch the Indy 500? BTW, Dan Wheldon won the thing. His 4th win in the last 5 races. Not bad either...

I was at my cousin's graduation party. Someone told us she was ahead with 20 laps to go. So, I did go in with a bunch of people to see it. Of course the women were all fired up for her to win. Inevitably some people turned it into a sexist arguement. That took away from my enjoyment of it. One guy and one lady were really getting the jabs in. I was thinking "shut the $%^& up you morons" They were trying to be funny but it was just annoying. Anyway, yet It was impressive I thought to see a woman almost win a heavily male dominated sporting event.

seeing that this thread has become a general racing forum instead of just NASCAR (I enjoy Formula 1 and Champcar), I'll add my 2 cents.

I think Danica is over-hyped just because she is a female and not because of her performance. She's done well at Indy and in Japan, but otherwise she is consistently a mid-packer. Granted, she's a rookie and learning the tracks (except for Milwaukee where she raced twice before in lower leagues. I had high expectations, but she crashed), but she is not deserving of more attention than, say Dan Wheldon. Anyone who's followed her career knows she hasn't won in any form of racing for 8 years!

If the media wants to jump on a female race driver, then they should look at Katherine Legge who's won 3 times this year in Toyota Atlantics (where, incidently Miss Patrick raced for the past 2 years) as a rookie. There's alsoErin Crocker, Leilani Munther (who's a Catherine Zeta-Jones look-alike), or Angelle Sampey, to name a few.

Just wanted to tell all you NASCAR fans that we live about 1.5 miles from Lowes Motorspeedway in Concord, NC. If you ever make it to the Coke 600 or the fall race let us know! It's a great track and a great place to camp/tailgate. My husband works for Penske Racing as a fabricator -- so by default I have to be a Ryan Newman/Rusty Wallace fan He used to change rear tires for Kurt Busch and then Mark Martin so he's been to all the tracks numerous times. I've only made it to Charlotte, Myrtle Beach (Busch race), Loudon (to score the race), Rockingham and Bristol -- all in the pits. Bristol is by far the most exciting -- definately worth the trip if you can swing it. If have friends who live in MD and WI who meet and camp at the Bristol night race every year.

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"Y'all know you're the only ones with the Jesus fish in the titty bar parking lot" - Name*********************************************************Cancer Sucks

There has been over two complete seasons that have gone by since the last post by Tracy.

Here we are with seven races to go in the Chase for the Cup. Jimmie Johnson is leading Jeff Gordon by just six points heading into this weekends race. The best thing about last weekends race is that it seperated the top three guys, Johson, Gordon and Bowyer from the rest of the field so if anything happens to them and the other guys that had trouble last week do well, it will just even up the top 12 again instead of them dropping over a hundred points which is what happened at Kansas to eight of the twelve Chase drivers. I couldn't have been more thrilled with the results on Sunday.

Now it's on to the biggest track on the circuit and one of the most dangerous....Talladega! I'll be attending the race as I do every year. We'll be leaving at 4:00am tomorrow and coming home on Monday. I really hope it doesn't rain on us. Camping out in tents in the rain is not so much fun.